Ngugi Thiong'o

Ngugi wa Thiong'o, currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the International centre for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine, was born in Kenya in 1938. After penning Petals of Blood in 1977, a novel sharply critical of life in neo-colonial Kenya, he was arrested and imprisoned without charge for a year. Vanity Fair has called him the scourge of African dictators and warlords" and the San Diego Union-Tribune praised him as a writer whose output feels essential for those hoping to understand contemporary Africa." He lives in Irvine, California.